MORE than 200 people turned out to a public meeting to discuss the future of the town following the loss of a number of businesses.

The meeting, held last week in Chagford’s Jubilee Hall, was called to discuss how to drive Chagford forward following the recent closures of the Natwest branch and Northfield Garage.

During the meeting residents also addressed the reduced service of the Post Office and the future closures of Lloyds Bank and Webber and Sons — one of the town’s longest running businesses.

Jubilee Hall has only 112 seats, however this did not prevent 230 people from taking part in the meeting by willingly standing or sitting on the floor.

Representatives of Chagford Parish Council and Devon County Council were in attendance as well as representatives of Dartmoor National Park Authority.

The imminent closure of Lloyds bank was discussed. Local resident Tim Garrett said that if there were going to be complaints made about the closure of the service, then letters should be written directly to the ombudsman.

Julia Darby suggested trying to register the bank as a community asset. However, Mary French, who runs The Globe Inn pub, said that the town needed to accept the closure of the bank and instead concentrate on pushing the town forward in more positive ways.

Meeting attendees agreed that the mobile banking services, from both Natwest and Lloyds, need to come to the town’s square, rather than the car park, for more than 45 minutes once a week.

Stuart Rogers, who runs the Ashburton Post Office, which had recently taken on that town’s banking and library services, was the guest speaker.

He said the key was thinking differently and working collaboratively. All towns faced challenges and the only way to solve these challenges was to work together.

His thoughts were echoed by others at the meeting, such as by Andrea Humphries, the owner of Whiddon’s Bistro, who suggested that in order to save any more businesses from closing on the high street, local businesses need to work together.

Members of the meeting were mostly in agreement that the town needed more obvious signage in order to direct people both to the town and to the car park.

A re-launch to the local business association was also agreed as a good idea, as this would help facilitate businesses to work more closely together.

Long term resident of Chagford Peter Shields, who chaired the meeting said: ‘It was a very positive meeting and has been successful in launching a new initiative to help businesses in the town.